I think your reasoning here is correct and that it is as good an argument against the many worlds interpretation as any that I have seen.
The best argument against the many worlds interpretation that you have seen is somewhat muddled thinking about ethical considerations with respect to normal coin tosses?
Yup, that’s the best. I’d be happy to hear about the best you’ve seen, especially if you’ve seen better.
Why do you assume I would be inclined to one up the argument? The more natural interpretation of my implied inference is in approximately the reverse direction.
If the best argument against MWI that a self professed physicist and MWI critic has ever seen has absolutely zero persuasive power then that is rather strong evidence in favor.
I am new to this board and come in with a “prior” of rejecting MWI beyond the tiniest amount on the basis of, among other things, conservation of energy and mass. (Where do these constantly forming new worlds come from?) MWI seems more like a mapmakers mistake than a description of the territory, which manifestly has only one universe in it every time I look.
I was inviting you to show me with links or description whatever you find most compelling, if you could be bothered to. I am reading main sequence stuff and this is one of the more interesting puzzles among Less Wrong’s idiosyncratic consensi.
Here a subsequent discussion about some experimental test(s) of MWI. Also here a video dicussion between Scott Aaronson and Yudkowsky (starting at 38:11). More links on topic can be found here.
ETA
Sorry, I wanted to reply to another of your comments, wrong tab. Anyway.
Wikipedia points to a site that says conservation of energy is not violated. Do you know if it’s factually wrong or what’s going on here? (if so can you update wikipedia? :D)
Q22 Does many-worlds violate conservation of energy?
First, the law conservation of energy is based on observations within each world. All observations within each world are consistent with conservation of energy, therefore energy is conserved.
Second, and more precisely, conservation of energy, in QM, is formulated in terms of weighted averages or expectation values. Conservation of energy is expressed by saying that the time derivative of the expected energy of a closed system vanishes. This statement can be scaled up to include the whole universe. Each world has an approximate energy, but the energy of the total wavefunction, or any subset of, involves summing over each world, weighted with its probability measure. This weighted sum is a constant. So energy is conserved within each world and also across the totality of worlds.
One way of viewing this result—that observed conserved quantities are conserved across the totality of worlds—is to note that new worlds are not created by the action of the wave equation, rather existing worlds are split into successively “thinner” and “thinner” slices, if we view the probability densities as “thickness”.
I don’t understand. How is my argument an argument against the many worlds interpretation? (Without falling into the logical fallacy of Appeal to Consequences).
It would seem to suggest that if I want to be rich I should buy a bunch of lottery tickets and then kill myself when I don’t win.
I have not seen the local discussion of MWI and everett branches, but my “conclusion” in the past has been that MWI is a defect of the map maker and not a feature of the territory. I’d be happy to be pointed to something that would change my mind or at least rock it a bit, but for now it looks like angels dancing on the heads of pins. Has somebody provided an experiment that would rule MWI in or out? If so, what was the result? If not, then how is a consideration of MWI anything other than confusing the map with the territory?
If I have fallen in to Appeal to Consequences with my original post, than my bad.
It would seem to suggest that if I want to be rich I should buy a bunch of lottery tickets and then kill myself when I don’t win.
I don’t think that’s the case, but even if it were, using that to argue against the likelihood of MWI would be Appeal to Consequences.
I have not seen the local discussion of MWI and everett branches, but my “conclusion” in the past has been that MWI is a defect of the map maker and not a feature of the territory.
That’s what I used to think :)
I’d be happy to be pointed to something that would change my mind or at least rock it a bit
If you’re prepared for a long but rewarding read, Eliezer’s Quantum Physics Sequence is a non-mysterious introduction to quantum mechanics, intended to be accessible to anyone who can grok algebra and complex numbers. Cleaning up the old confusion about QM is used to introduce basic issues in rationality (such as the technical version of Occam’s Razor), epistemology, reductionism, naturalism, and philosophy of science.
Has somebody provided an experiment that would rule MWI in or out? If so, what was the result? If not, then how is a consideration of MWI anything other than confusing the map with the territory?
The idea is that MWI is the simplest explanation that fits the data, by the definition of simplest that has proven to be most useful when predicting which of different theories that match the same data is actually correct.
I think your reasoning here is correct and that it is as good an argument against the many worlds interpretation as any that I have seen.
The best argument against the many worlds interpretation that you have seen is somewhat muddled thinking about ethical considerations with respect to normal coin tosses?
Yup, that’s the best. I’d be happy to hear about the best you’ve seen, especially if you’ve seen better.
Why do you assume I would be inclined to one up the argument? The more natural interpretation of my implied inference is in approximately the reverse direction.
If the best argument against MWI that a self professed physicist and MWI critic has ever seen has absolutely zero persuasive power then that is rather strong evidence in favor.
I am new to this board and come in with a “prior” of rejecting MWI beyond the tiniest amount on the basis of, among other things, conservation of energy and mass. (Where do these constantly forming new worlds come from?) MWI seems more like a mapmakers mistake than a description of the territory, which manifestly has only one universe in it every time I look.
I was inviting you to show me with links or description whatever you find most compelling, if you could be bothered to. I am reading main sequence stuff and this is one of the more interesting puzzles among Less Wrong’s idiosyncratic consensi.
Here a subsequent discussion about some experimental test(s) of MWI. Also here a video dicussion between Scott Aaronson and Yudkowsky (starting at 38:11). More links on topic can be found here.
ETA Sorry, I wanted to reply to another of your comments, wrong tab. Anyway.
Wikipedia points to a site that says conservation of energy is not violated. Do you know if it’s factually wrong or what’s going on here? (if so can you update wikipedia? :D)
Q22 Does many-worlds violate conservation of energy?
First, the law conservation of energy is based on observations within each world. All observations within each world are consistent with conservation of energy, therefore energy is conserved. Second, and more precisely, conservation of energy, in QM, is formulated in terms of weighted averages or expectation values. Conservation of energy is expressed by saying that the time derivative of the expected energy of a closed system vanishes. This statement can be scaled up to include the whole universe. Each world has an approximate energy, but the energy of the total wavefunction, or any subset of, involves summing over each world, weighted with its probability measure. This weighted sum is a constant. So energy is conserved within each world and also across the totality of worlds.
One way of viewing this result—that observed conserved quantities are conserved across the totality of worlds—is to note that new worlds are not created by the action of the wave equation, rather existing worlds are split into successively “thinner” and “thinner” slices, if we view the probability densities as “thickness”.
I don’t understand. How is my argument an argument against the many worlds interpretation? (Without falling into the logical fallacy of Appeal to Consequences).
It would seem to suggest that if I want to be rich I should buy a bunch of lottery tickets and then kill myself when I don’t win.
I have not seen the local discussion of MWI and everett branches, but my “conclusion” in the past has been that MWI is a defect of the map maker and not a feature of the territory. I’d be happy to be pointed to something that would change my mind or at least rock it a bit, but for now it looks like angels dancing on the heads of pins. Has somebody provided an experiment that would rule MWI in or out? If so, what was the result? If not, then how is a consideration of MWI anything other than confusing the map with the territory?
If I have fallen in to Appeal to Consequences with my original post, than my bad.
I don’t think that’s the case, but even if it were, using that to argue against the likelihood of MWI would be Appeal to Consequences.
That’s what I used to think :)
If you’re prepared for a long but rewarding read, Eliezer’s Quantum Physics Sequence is a non-mysterious introduction to quantum mechanics, intended to be accessible to anyone who can grok algebra and complex numbers. Cleaning up the old confusion about QM is used to introduce basic issues in rationality (such as the technical version of Occam’s Razor), epistemology, reductionism, naturalism, and philosophy of science.
For a shorter sequence that concentrates on why MWI wins, see And the Winner is… Many-Worlds!
The idea is that MWI is the simplest explanation that fits the data, by the definition of simplest that has proven to be most useful when predicting which of different theories that match the same data is actually correct.
How is it an argument against the many worlds interpretation?
Unless you’re falling into the logical fallacy of Appeal to Consequences.